The Chongqing Major Stats Recap: Unpicked Heroes

The Chongqing Major was a strange tournament. There were almost no technical issues and it completely disproved any notions that the Chinese crowd is only interested in the games of the Chinese teams, with a full venue during the Grand Finals between Virtus.Pro and Team Secret. It was a well produced and a well received tournament, but at the same time it was also one of the least diverse tournaments in the last several years.

89 heroes or 76% of the overall hero pool was contested and 84 heroes were picked across 96 games. It is a poor result if you are accustomed to the diversity of Dota. Something about this patch doesn’t work as well as it should.

Luckily it didn’t have a huge impact on the quality of the games. The average match duration for the tournament was around 35 minutes, but we’ve seen games go much longer or much shorter than that. There was intense back-and-forth, there were stomps and there were overwhelmingly powerful cheese strats, both trying to rush the opponent or delay the game.

Somehow, however, these strategies were executed with roughly the same heroes. These heroes were discussed at length in our blog and closely mirror what we’ve seen during the Bucharest Minor. Instead of going through the same list once again we are going to concentrate on the 27 uncontested heroes of the tournament, highlighting why they might be unfavored by the professionals.

The hero is in a pretty bad place across the board. The overall increase in the amount of gold on the map made his strong points a lot less pronounced, while his poor laning stage was the final nail in the coffin of his viability.

Compared to a somewhat similar “acceleration” hero like Anti-Mage, Alchemist is incapable of prolonging the game safely by himself. The former can still cut waves and split-push to slow down the pace of the game and farm up. Alchemist is never as safe and rarely as fast.

The hero really doesn’t offer much until his level six and in a meta where trilanes are back, while denies still only give 25% XP this is too greedy. His previous trilane equalizing spell was changed and given to Tusk, so he can’t even offer that.

The hero might actually be good if your trilane is facing a solo offlaner and it might actually work in pubs. But in the professional scene most opponents will simply adjust by switching their lanes at the start of the game.

This one is actually interesting. Bloodseeker has good starting stats, stat growth and his power spike comes early enough for the hero to matter. The problem is probably in his laning stage.

Bloodseeker is a good laner, but he can’t be a part of a trilane in the current patch—the hero needs his XP early on to have a chance of having an impact on the game. He can be a solo offlaner in a 1v1, but he is outclassed by many heroes in terms of both tempo and utility. He also potentially loses many mid matchups and is incredibly susceptible to ganks.

Bounty Hunter suffers the same problems as Alchemist—his team gold acceleration is redundant in an already fast patch. Sure, you can make the early game of the enemy supports harder and maybe even gank successfully a couple of times, but then your utility is limited to a melee range slow and an interrupt—not something professional teams can afford.

Broodmother is a very niche hero and it makes her incredibly hard to assess by non-dedicated players. The problem might be that she isn’t a group up and push hero or that she can’t dominate her lane as comfortably as she used to. We honestly don’t know why the ultimate cheese pick no longer seems viable and would be happy if your shared your thoughts on that.

There is a degree of similarity between Chaos Knight and an extremely popular Terrorblade—both heroes really don’t want to fight without their main “ultimate”, be it Phantasm or Metamorphosis. It is even possible to argue that in teamfights Phantasm is actually stronger.

The problem is in the downtime—Terrorblade is still one of the fastest farming heroes in the game, while CK really suffers in this regard. Moreover, while teamfight impact between these two spells might be similar, Terrorblade is also much stronger when it comes to pushes, as he can stand at a relatively safe distance.

Dark Willow needs her level six to be effective and in a trilane vs. trilane environment it comes way too late. She also doesn’t offer as much guaranteed utility early on as most other position four supports popular in the meta.

Once again, it is a problem of midgame utility that makes Enchantress so unpopular. She can be extremely safe in a 1v1 and will at least break even in most lanes, but capitalizing even on a great start can be problematic for this hero. She can also die to randomly flying spells in the early game and good teams generally draft a healthy mix of physical and magical damage.

Legion Commander can’t guarantee her farm as well as other offlane heroes and she also arguably needs more of it. If she can’t hit her Blink Dagger or Shadow Blade timings, her game can go awry and even if she does the prevalence of casual Bracers, Wraith Bands and Null Talismans make her game a lot harder.

Yet another Strength core that can’t be in the offlane and doesn’t offer as much as the first position carry. Juggernaut does more in lane, scales better and has a more pronounced teamfight presence, if you are looking for a punishment on a lineup that has no spell immunity-piercing disables.

The hero is too all-in on push and it might actually work against weaker opponents, but better teams will always find a way to avoid fights and prolong the game. Lycan doesn’t scale well enough to survive such circumstances and once he falls off, there is no plan B. Moreover, with Dark Seer popular in the meta, Lycan isn’t even necessarily going to be the alpha wolf in terms of speed.

Mirana’s absence from the meta is surprising. She can be played in multiple roles and can be devastating in trilanes, almost guaranteeing a kill with some set-up. The hero doesn’t offer as much utility as other position four supports or position three cores and doesn’t scale as well as other mids, but she is still a flex pick and that was generally valued highly in previous patches. Perhaps the hero is simply too weak in general to be considered.

Playing around day and night cycle is one of the more satisfying Dota mechanics, but it isn’t particularly effective or consistent. You can’t fight during the day and can’t afford to lose fights during the night—the tempo swing can be too devastating. Moreover, it is hard to find a role for a hero who you generally don’t want to be farming, but who isn’t as effective without items.

Current meta revolves around Agility carries and the extra Attack Speed is often redundant on them. Ogre Magi still offers a great body, a potent slow and a reliable stun, but his scaling isn’t as impressive, while his midgame isn’t as dominant. With his utility presence either subsitutable or redundant, it is no wonder he was ignored in the tournament.

Once again, it is hard to place the hero on the map. As a position three he doesn’t offer lockdown utility of heroes like Beastmaster or Centaur. As a support, he is way too greedy. Omniknight can still turn fights around and Heavenly Grace is a decent substitute for Repel, but you will always feel awkward with this hero on your team, at least for the first 10 minutes of the game.

Very similar to Bounty Hunter, Riki simply doesn’t do much, except for support annoyance. He isn’t good in a trilane and isn’t effective enough as a solo hero, except for some ludicrous starts. Players have been toying with the idea of a position one Riki, but, once again, it is high risk-moderate reward proposition: the hero doesn’t farm fast enough and doesn’t scale as well as most other cores.

Sand King can be a good position three or four hero. Reliable stun, high-damage ultimate and support taxation all seem like a recipe for a popular and effective hero, but he isn’t one. The main reason for it is that he is simply outclassed in the current meta—you don’t need damage from your position three or four hero, but you do welcome either spell immunity-piercing effects or other utility tools from them. With how early Centaurs, Tusks and Beastmasters are picked, there is little to no space for SK.

This hero is all about damage and that makes him unfit for a support in the current meta. Current gameplan for most teams is two DPS heroes and three utility ones—Terrorblade, PA, OD and to a certain extent even Juggernaut are all glass cannons in the early stages of the game. They provide more than enough damage and all they need is a safe way to dish it out. Skywrath Mage doesn’t offer it, while still losing DPS-wise to other mid heroes.

Changes to Bloodstone as well as renewed focus on mid lane as a lane for semi-tempo heroes completely killed Storm Spirit. This hero needs a lot of farm to be effective, won’t necessarily deal enough damage in the late game to justify it and can feel powerless in lane. Storm Spirit is currently below 40% win rate in highest level pubs and this won’t change without some direct buffs.

The hero looks pretty good on paper but he is very cooldown reliant. Given enough time and space he can prove himself as a support, but the games are simply too fast for him to catch up. Living Armor is still an amazing spell, but given how most teams now prefer to group up and 100 to 0 a couple of towers in one go once they have an advantage, at least half of the spells utility is wasted.

Ursa can’t be a position one core—he simply doesn’t scale well enough in a meta with Terrorblade and Phantom Assassin. What he offers in terms of killing Roshan is also overshadowed by his low tower damage. He could potentially work as a lane counter to some popular heroes, but outside of the mid lane matchups his presence is justifiably low.

Once again, long cooldowns on supports are too punishing in the current patch. You want your supports to run around creating space and not sit back behind their carry for 75% of the game, without applying any pressure. Proactive play is rewarded, passive play is punished more than ever and Warlock is simply too passive.

We believe Witch Doctor could actually work as a position five support. Paralyzing Cask is both annoying and effective in trilanes, while Voodoo Restoration can be a game-changer in a trilane vs. trilane setup. The problem is probably how the hero has to make a choice between being a lane equalizer or a strong midgame ganking support, whereas many currently popular heroes are more than capable in both regards.

Once again, it is not a good patch for position one Strength carries and the offlane is currently occupied by higher utility heroes. Wraith King doesn’t do as much with farm, doesn’t scale and while his laning is decent, it might be hard for him to capitalize on it. Second life in engagements can be pretty powerful, but probably not as powerful as being able to kill enemy cores in less than five attacks or having massive, sustainable ranged damage.

BKBs come earlier, everyone is buying cheap transition items and that completely destroys the powerspike of Zeus. The hero simply doesn’t deal enough damage in a meta where you can have Centaur Warrunner running around 17 minutes in with almost 3000 HP and a Hood. Even when BKBs get short and the passive is maxed out, Zeus is still going to be inferior to heroes like OD in terms of damage, since the scaling on his abilities isn’t as pronounced.

Icy removes the 25% advantage on primary attributes, and increase Str to HP translation (from 18 to 20 HP). Hence now all hero have higher HP than before, while Str heroes doesn't receive their advantage HP from primary stat as they used to. This is a nerf for most Str (especially the cores).

While Agi cores doesn't really affected (by this loss of 25% primary advantage), since the stacking of Wraith Bands can just easily solve their Agi, armor, and AtkSpeed requirement at early to mid game.

"Bloodseeker is a good laner, but he can’t be a part of a trilane in the current patch—the hero needs his XP early on to have a chance of having an impact on the game. He can be a solo offlaner in a 1v1, but he is outclassed by many heroes in terms of both tempo and utility. He also potentially loses many mid matchups and is incredibly susceptible to ganks."

Bloodseeker is one of the best heroes when he is ahead. He is one of the worst heroes to play from behind with.

In the only patch where bloodseeker was considered a top pick (TI5/6.84) it was because he easily got such a large damage boost from even 1 or 2 levels in thirst so that he would usually reliably have anywhere between 90-100 damage at level 3. Combined with the extra damage from bloodrage and a quelling blade this meant that he could cs for something like 150 damage, it was simply not possible to win a lane against him. I remember playing a mid match up where I crushed an SF so badly I had treads aquila and a yasha by the time he had treads and a bottle. One mid match up against a CK he had 10 cs by 10 minutes.

This incredible lane winning ability then allowed him to snowball in farm, rack up kills, and close the game out before the enemy carry had time to farm and comeback.

Now as a carry his carry skill thirst doesn't kick in until team fights are well underway since he doesn't get any bonus until an enemy is at 75% hp. Even then he is only at full strength once an enemy is at 25% hp. By the time an enemy is 25% hp they are almost dead, so bloodseeker being at his strongest at this point is moot - once an enemy has lost 75% of their health a fight is almost always won anyway. In comparison basically every other carry starts a fight dealing their maximum damage output.

The difficulty from not fighting at full strength from the start of a fight is part of what makes his susceptibility to ganks even worse. The point of rupture is to force an enemy to stand still for 12 seconds to allow bloodseeker to attack them without interruption or running away - which makes it theoretically very good against mobile heroes like AM, Void, PA, Slark, Mirana, QoP, Spirit Breaker etc). However when the enemy gets the jump on bloodseeker through an initiation or gank rupture does nothing - the enemy already wants to stick close to the bloodseeker. The bloodseeker and their team then have to while at half/low etc health turn around and start dealing enough damage to the enemy to proc thirst so that bloodseeker can get strong enough to win the fight. Obviously if the enemy are far enough ahead or do enough burst damage in the initiation the bloodseeker is never able to get the damage.

None of his skills are suitable for protecting himself if he is initiated on. If an enemy is able to stand and fight against bloodseeker because they are more heavily farmed or have abilities which are suitable for manfighting (heroes like Lifestealer, Ursa, CK, Wraith King, even Death Prophet etc) then rupture does nothing and his ultimate is effectively a damageless ability which only effect is to make an enemy stand still for 12 seconds.

After 6.84 the thirst scaling was changed to 75-25 and the early game damage was no longer reliably given. This made it very difficult to win mid match ups. There have been some occasions since when he has sometimes been picked professionally sometimes after about 10 tiny buffs in a row (eg patch 7.16 when bloodrage was buffed to permanently apply and his level 10 talent provided 8 armour) but for the most part the hero is ignored in professional dota and high level pubs, and only played in low level pubs where there is a tendency to stand around in lane on 30% hp and the lack of coordination allows him to still snowball off of out of position enemies.

Until the thirst skill is fixed so that the hero is able to snowball as a carry again he's never going to be picked as a pos 1. Until he gets a buff to his skills or stats to allow him to contest mid lane he is never going to be picked as a pos 2. Unless he gets a change to one of his skills to allow him to provide more in team fights than an easily dodgeable nuke/silence, or an improvement to laning to make him less susceptible to ganking he's never going to be picked as a pos 3.

Sadly the most recent change he got was to change his extra attack to extra attack speed. For comparison this means that if all of the enemies are low HP he attacks about as fast as what alchemist does normally just with his ultimate, or what Lina attacks after casting 3 spells and taking the extra stacks talent. On top of that it no longer applies if an enemy BKBs so in team fights its even less likely to be active when it matters, and while the reduction of the incoming damage in bloodrage makes him less susceptible to being blow up it also reduces his damage output significantly.

Sadly while almost all of the other above heroes above received major or minor buffs in the 7.21 patch, some of which have led to massive winrate spikes in pubs bloodseeker received only a tiny movespeed increase which effectively just undid a nerf he received in patch 7.07. You would think that the fact that after all the big changes he received in the 7.20 patch and he still wasn't picked a single time might suggest that those changes leave him weak, underpowered, and unviable - but no, based on Icefrog's response the hero is fine and just needed a previous minor nerf undone.

It's blatantly obvious that Icefrog is never going to allow bloodseeker to ever be considered even a situational pick for pro dota.

Broodmother is nowhere as dominant in the lane as she used to be, as new spiders are considerably weaker. The fact that there is also more gold around the map makes her enemy jungle occupation far less significant. In general, the faster tempo of current meta with most cores outscaling her combined with her weaker early game, makes her window to shine extremely narrow. Additionally the popularity of supports that deal well with her like earthshaker, kotl and grimmstroke makes her very unreliable in the current meta.

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